Tag: Moon

Night Pics

I had to drive to Wilmington tonight to pick up a potential xmas present at a Target that may or may not be built on top of the location of a warehouse in which I spent the last year of my life before returning to college in 1997. The whole neighborhood is new, but I think my building is still there, just significantly remodeled, and the Target is actually next door.

I took my point and shoot along for the ride and took some awful, awful pics.

DSCN2743
DSCN2744
DSCN2747
DSCN2750
DSCN2751
DSCN2752
DSCN2753

On the way home I tried to take a pic of the city’s xmas tree but the light turned green and I ended up with this masterpiece.

DSCN2757

When I got home and got out of the car I saw that the moon looked awesome through the hazy clouds and I ran inside to put my best lens on my DSLR so I could take a pic. It ended up being an exposure compensation test that gave me four really awful, awful pictures.

DSC_0009
No exposure compensation. The trees are cool, the moon is not.
DSC_0010
Exposure compensation at -3. The moon looks awesome but everything else is non-existent.
DSC_0011
Exposure compensation at -2. Still too much.
DSC_0012
Exposure compensation at -1. Better, but maybe not enough. Somewhere between -1 and -2 should be the sweet spot.

Next I continued the exposure compensation olympics by aiming at the xmas lights on the roof.

DSC_0013
No exposure compensation.
DSC_0015
Exposure compensation at -1. Or was it -2? I think it was -1.

Isn’t this the most fascinating post ever? I knew you’d love it!

Artemis I: Scrubbed

I’m pretty disappointed. NASA was supposed to launch it’s first Artemis mission today. It was going to test the Orion capsule and the SLS rocket (I think I have those titles correct, but I could be off somewhere) by launching it into lunar orbit and bringing it home. It is an unmanned mission, apart from a few mannequins, but it’s the first big test for the setup that should eventually put people back on the surface of the moon.

No dice though. No launch today. Hopefully they’ll have their issue (something to do with fueling, I think) sorted out soon and we’ll get our test. Fingers crossed, NASA.

Creepiness

You know how when you live in the woods you often hear noises coming from somewhere in the trees and you can almost never see whatever it is that’s making the noise?

Why is it, when you go outside in the daylight, that noise always sounds like a squirrel or a chipmunk or something small enough that you can step on it and put it out of its misery, but when you go outside at night that sound always sounds like a deer, or a coyote, or a bear, or a gorilla, or a manbearpig or a Targaryen dragon?

While you ponder that, check out the moon. iPhone astrophotography and shit.